Even More Than Angel
by ever
Summary: Buffy and Angel deal with their new status' (set after the season finales)


Even More Than Angel  
Timeline: Starts sometime during season 6 and moves backwards to the very end of season 5  
Spoilers and Speculations: See above (actually most of this will never happen because it involves a crossover and Joss and Co. are trying to steer away from those, atleast not as early in the season as this, but some very major points will definitely happen)  
Summary: Starts with Angel comforting Buffy after her rebirth (she's having issues) and moves backwards towards Angel dealing with her death.  
Author's Note: The quotes are really relevant. I thought it would be cool to have my story going backwards and the B/A story moving forward. So I just chose selected quotes and stuff. They aren't really placed or chosen strategically. A couple of them have to do with death and others were funny or important so I put them in.  
  
  
  
"Buffy: Why are you following me?  
Angel: I know what you're thinking. Don't worry, I don't bite."  
- Welcome to the Hellmouth, Season I  
  
  
6:00 PM  
They sat across from each other, silent as death. It made sense since, as Cordelia has so carelessly blurted out to Gunn and Wesley, hey they're both dead. It was one more experience for them to comiserate about.  
Angel looked down at his hands and up at the girl sitting across from him at varying intervals. He was trying to forget. He was trying to replace the paleness of her cheek with the glow that had always emanated from it before, trying to imagine that, that morning she hadn't come and thrown herself into his arms and sobbed out all her sorrow about being... dead. He was trying not to see the irony of all those arguments when in anger she had thrown the fact that he had no pulse in his face and now neither did she. He was trying to imagine that they were sitting again at his mansion in Sunnydale and not at a bus station in LA waiting for a bus that would take Buffy home and away from him.  
  
  
  
  
"Buffy: How did you happen to come along?  
Angel: I live nearby. I was just out walking.  
Buffy: So, you weren't following me? I just had this feeling you were.  
Angel: (smiles) Why would I do that?  
Buffy: You tell me you're the mystery guy that appears out of nowhere. I'm not saying I'm not happy about it tonight, but if you're hanging around I'd like to know why...  
Angel: Maybe I like you  
Buffy: Maybe..."  
-Angel, Season I  
  
  
  
He thought that if he listened hard with his vampire ears he could detect Buffy's heartbeat and distinguish it from the rest of the crowd. He silently blessed the powers that had left her with that gift. He had used it earlier to prove to her that she was alive.  
People came to him all the time for help and lately he had failed them. There was Darla, who was given a new chance at life, but was inherently doomed. He failed to save her. There was Harmony. The one who had a new chance at life, but was inherently evil. He had failed again. Then there was Buffy, who also had a new life. He had helped her. She would go on and be saved because, as he had pointed out to her, she was inherently alive.  
He looked up at her again. Her eyes were downcast and he knew that she didn't see her surroundings and the noisy bus terminal. She was looking inside herself and she was looking at him. He sighed as her remembered how he used to hold Buffy in his arms and let her warmth spread through him. Now there would be none of that. It was a small and trivial regret, nothing compared to the immense joy of finding that Buffy's soul was still on this earth.  
He got up to walk her towards the bus that had just pulled in and as he reached for her bag their hands brushed. He felt the impact and the heat and smiled to think what a fool he was.  
Buffy smiled back at him.   
"Always the gentleman," she said, laughing. Her expression turned serious as she kissed him on the cheek. "Thank you," she said.  
"Whenever you need me..." Angel told her.  
"I know," she said, quickly and left before he could say anything else.  
  
  
"Angel: I know this is hard.  
Buffy: What do you know about this? You're never gonna die!  
Angel: You think I want anything to happen to you? Do you think I could stand it? We just gotta figure out a way...  
Buffy: I already did. I quit. Remember? Pay attention!:"  
-Prophecy Girl, Season I (finale)  
  
  
  
10:00 AM- The Same Day  
Dead, dead, dead, the words echoed through her head and resounded with each footstep as she ran. She was dead. No matter that the short quick gasps coming from her throat seemed a lot like breathing. They weren't real. She wasn't real. She wasn't alive. No pulse, no warmth, no life, she practically sobbed. She had never thought it would end up like this.  
But she couldn't let Dawn see her. She couldn't show her pain and her weakness and so she ran to the one person who she knew understood her. She ran to Angel.  
  
  
"Buffy: Hi  
Angel: Hi  
Buffy: So is there danger at the Bronze? Should I beware?  
Angel: I can't help thinking that I've done something to make you angry. And that bothers me more than I'd like.  
Buffy: I'm not angry. I don't know where that comes from.  
Angel: What are you afraid of? Me? Us?  
Buffy: Could you contemplate getting over yourself for a second? There's no 'us.' Look Angel, I'm sorry if I was supposed to spend the summer mooning over you, but I didn't. I moved on. To the living."  
-When She Was Bad, Season II  
  
  
  
There was his hotel, a tall dark building that Cordelia had sent Willow a picture of ages ago. The Hyperion, its name seemed so Angel like to her. Into its threshold she stumbled expecting to see the shocked faces of Cordelia and Wesley. She was expecting to have to confront their stares as she frantically asked them for Angel and she knew that in that moment she would feel mortified and wish she had never come. But what lay beyond would make her forget that. She would find Angel and then everything would be okay. She clung to that hope in the morning sun.  
When, she tried to make some sort of dignified entrance into the hotel to save face in front of Cordelia and Wesley she didn't find them. There was only Angel and without delay she flung herself into his open arms and he held her and comforted her, like she had expected and like she had wanted.  
  
  
  
"Angel: I heard you were on the hunt.  
Buffy: I'm supposed to be, but... lazy bones here doesn't wanna come out and play.  
Angel: When you first wake up it's a little disorienting. He'll show.  
Buffy: It's wierd to think of you going through that.  
Angel: It's wierd to go through."  
-Some Assembly Required, Season II  
  
  
  
9:00 AM- The Same Day  
"Angel." It was Willow on the phone calling to tell him about something, but Angel anticipated her. He already knew.  
"It's Buffy," he told Willow. "She's alive."  
"I know-- but how did you know?" Willow asked astonished.  
"I... How did this happen?"  
"We think it just had to do with pieces of Buffy being alive in the world. Dawn was a big part of her and she's still alive and the gang and Giles and... and... you."  
"So we're responsible for Buffy being alive?" Angel asked. He liked that idea.  
"Well us and some guy up there with the Powers That Be that really likes Buffy," Willow said. Angel smiled.  
"Can I talk to her?"  
"Actually that's what I was calling about. She's not here."  
"What do you mean? Where is she?"  
"Well we think she's enroute to you."  
"Me? Why?" Angel said, feeling pleasure at the thought.  
"She's having trouble... dealing with being... well you know, dead. And she thought that you would understand being, well you know..."  
"Dead?" Angel filled in for her.  
"Yeah, so she kind of took off and told us to cover for her, so be expecting her okay."  
"Sure, thanks for the call." Angel put the phone back in its cradle and looked around at the hotel. Should he prepare a room? No, she wouldn't be staying the night. He should probably tell Cordelia to pick up some food. He began to prepare a mental list of all the things Buffy liked. Then he stopped... Cordelia. She shouldn't be around when Buffy comes, he told himself. He went to go tell Cordelia, Wesley, Gunn and Fred that they needed to leave for the day. Buffy wouldn't want any of them to see her.  
  
  
  
"Angel: Listen, if we date, you and I, one thing's gonna lead to another.  
Buffy: One thing already has led to another. You think it's a little late to be reading me a warning label?  
Angel: I'm just trying to protect you. This could get out of control.  
Buffy: Isn't that the way it's supposed to be?"  
-Reptile Boy, Season II  
  
  
  
6:00 AM- The Same Day in LA  
Angel awoke suddenly and looked at the clock. He had only gone to sleep two hours ago and even then he had been dead tired. Why was he up so early? Then he felt it. Her presence was so strong that he couldn't restrain himself from calling out. "Buffy?" Only darkness and silence answered him, but he knew without a doubt that she had been there.  
  
  
  
"Angel: Buffy. May I come in?  
Buffy: Sure. I thought once you were invited you could always just walk in.  
Angel: I can. I was just being polite."  
-Lie To Me, Season II  
  
  
  
Then he felt an unbidden joy rise in his non-beating heart that seemed to sing to him, she's alive, she's alive. He couldn't go back to sleep. Bounding out of bed he had to restrain himself from calling Sunnydale and waking Dawn up. He pulled out a box of photographs that he kept hidden in the back of his closet. The last time he had looked at them had been the day Willow had brought him the news.  
  
  
  
"Angel: Do you love me?  
Buffy: What?  
Angel: Do you?  
Buffy: I love you. I don't know if I trust you."  
-Lie To Me, Season II  
  
  
  
6:00 AM- The Same Day in Sunnydale  
A grave, a grave. She felt so wierd and detached, staring at the tombstone that bore her name. Buffy Anne Summers, it said. She wondered if her mother had ever considered how that name would look on a tombstone. "She saved the world a lot." Straight from the mouth of Xander Buffy's spirit thought. Then the moment of clear thinking vanished and she was left confused again. What was her body doing down there in the earth? Where was Dawn? Was she okay?  
Buffy began to move. She knew the way from the cemetery to her house easily. Through the door, up the stairs... Is Dawnie in her room? No, she 's not in mom's room either. Dawnie why are you sitting on my bed? Why are you crying? Why don't you look at me Dawnie? Clarity returned for a second. "Oh Dawn," Buffy put her arms around her sister, but Dawn didn't seem to realize it. "Dawn can you hear me? I'm so sorry it had to be this way..."  
Dawn looked up. "Buffy?" she said. She arose and ran to the window. "Buffy!" she called out into the night.  
"No! I'm over here Dawn! Dawn I don't have much time. Why can't you see me?" Buffy said to her sister. Dawn turned back from the window and sat back down on the bed. Tears began to fall down her cheeks. Buffy sighed. She felt the confusion coming. Quickly she moved Mr. Gordo into Dawn's hands and planted a kiss on the cheek of her sobbing sister.  
  
  
  
"Buffy: I wish we could be regular kids.  
Angel: I'll never be a kid.  
Buffy: Okay, then a regular kid and her craddle robbing, creature-of-the-night boyfriend."  
-What's My Line? Part I, Season II  
  
  
  
The spirit of Buffy held her head in her hands as she sat on the doorstep outside her house. It was alll muddled. She had the piece of her that was special that no one else had. She had the piece of her that was Dawn. She needed the other pieces. Who was there? Giles... Quickly with speed unknown to her she moved towards Giles complex. The door melted away before and she was standing in the familiar setting of Gile's living room. Only it wasn't so familiar. There were boxes and suitcases all over the place. An old record was playing on the stereo and there was a plane ticket for England on the kitchen counter. "Oh Giles," Buffy said.   
  
  
  
"Angel: kiss me  
Buffy: finally! something I wanna do!"  
-Ted, Season II  
  
  
  
She moved quickly towards the corner of the room and found him there indulging in some form of alchoholic bevarage. "Giles..." Buffy said. He looked up almost as if he recognized her and then back down again.  
"Don't know what I've become," he murmured to himself.  
"Giles pull yourself out of this," Buffy said.  
"Nothing will ever be the same again," he said. "How can the world go on as if they don't know what's happened?"  
"Giles... Giles... GILES!" Buffy finally said, shaking him slightly, but nothing could rouse him from his stupor. She didn't feel the confusion coming. She knew that a large part of Giles was intelligence, training, and control and she realized that she had gotten rid of the confusion, but she wasn't ready yet.  
  
  
  
"Angel: So you don't think about the future?  
Buffy: No.  
Angel: Never?  
Buffy: No.  
Angel: You really don't care what happens a year from now? Five years from now?  
Buffy: Angel, when I look into the future, a-a... all I see is you! All I want is you.  
Angel: I know the feeling."  
-Bad Eggs, Season II  
  
  
"Buffy" found Willow and Tara together. They seemed upset. Of course they were upset. Buffy realized thought that together they would pull through. They loved each other and two people in love could pull through anything. It reminded Buffy of another person she had to go see, but first there were others. Buffy sat down next to Willow on the bed. A cat was in her hands and photos were spread out before her.  
"Look this is a really funny one of Buffy and Angel," Willow said smiling and then letting sadness wash over her features. Tara leaned over to look at the picture. Buffy had somehow coaxed Angel into coming to the bronze. They had been in the middle of a dance when someone had come up to ask Angel where he shopped. The look on Angel's face had been priceless and Buffy had burst out laughing. Willow's camera had managed to capture it all. There were other pictures of Halloween costumes and proms.   
  
  
  
"Buffy: You don't know how long it's gonna take or if we'll even...  
Angel: Hey... If we'll even what?  
Buffy: Well, if you haven't noticed, someone pretty much always wants us dead.  
Angel: Don't say that. We'll be fine.  
Buffy: We don't know that."  
-Suprise, Season II  
  
  
  
The cat crawled into Buffy's hands. Buffy began to stroke it absentmindedly. Suddenly Willow looked up straight into Buffy's eyes. "Huh?" she said, confused. Buffy bit her lip.   
"Will, can you hear me? Can you see me?" Buffy asked, excitedly.  
"Is there something out the window?" Tara asked.  
"No, I..." Willow said. " I thought I felt something. It must have just been my imagination."  
Buffy's face fell. Well on to Xander...  
  
  
  
"Angel: Shhhh. I...  
Buffy: You what?  
Angel: I love you. I try not to, but I can't stop.  
Buffy: Me, me, too. I can't either."  
-Surprise, Season II  
  
  
  
"Buffy held us together and now that she's gone well... It's just not gonna be the same," Xander was saying to Anya.   
"That's so sweet," Buffy thought. "I could almost forgive him for the lame gravestone."  
"Well, maybe that's a good thing," Anya said.  
"What?"  
"I mean you wouldn't really want it to be the same would you? I mean I know if it happened to me I'd like to be a difference between when I was there and when I wasn't," Anya said.   
"Yeah," Xander said. He realized that most of the gang didn't think that Anya understood the world, but in the past few months she had been growing more and more sensitive. A part of Xander wanted to push the wedding off for years until it didn't hurt so much to think about Buffy. But on the other hand he really wanted to get married right then and there. "Maybe we should elope," Xander said.  
"No!" Anya and Buffy said in unison. "I want a nice traditional wedding," Anya said. "With a white dress, and a flower girl, and a ring bearer, and those little hot dog things that they serve in the receptions."  
"Yeah and I wanna be there," Buffy said.  
Xander looked up. "What is it?" Anya asked him.  
"Do you sometimes get the feeling that she's, you know, around?" Xander said.  
"Buffy?"  
"Yeah, you know, just in a wierd way."  
"I don't know," Anya said. "I guess it's nice to think of her and of Joyce as being always around, kind of gaurdian angels. Speaking of which how did Angel take it? Did you talk to Willow?"  
"Pretty bad, I think." Buffy didn't wait to hear the rest.  
  
  
  
"Angelus: I just want you to be able to have some kind of normal life. We can never have that, don't you see?  
Buffy: I don't give a *damn* about a normal life! I'm going crazy not seeing you. I think about you every minute."  
-I Only Have Eyes For You, Season II  
  
  
  
"Hey Angel," she said softly as she entered the room where he was sleeping. "I finally came to see you where it's not a bad thing. Or wait maybe, this is a bad thing?" Buffy sat down on the edge of the bed. "I only have a while so I figured I would just sit... here... with you. You don't have to get up or anything, because I think if you did then you would probably hear me and I don't want to explain right now. I just want to talk." Buffy stroked the side of Angel's face and he smiled in his sleep. "Willow said you didn't take it well. I'm sorry. Sorry that I had to leave you and couldn't say goodbye. Everyone else got a message. I just, I've just never said goodbye to you and... and I don't think I know how." Angel stirred slightly. "Don't get up," Buffy said. "I wonder if you can see me from where you are..."  
"I can feel you," Angel said outloud in his sleep. Buffy jumped with surprise. "Why didn't you tell me you needed help? We could've... I could've saved you. We would have been okay."  
"No you couldn't have Angel," Buffy said. "It was my choice to die. You have to understand that... I have to go now." Buffy bent down and planted a kiss on Angel's cheek. He woke up as she was leaving the room.  
  
  
  
"Buffy: I love you.  
Angel: I love you.  
Buffy: Close your eyes."  
-Becoming Part II, Season II (finale)  
  
  
  
WEEKS EARLIER  
"It's Buffy," he said and as soon as the words left his lips he wished he hadn't uttered them. It was as if saying it outloud would make it so and denying it would...  
"Angel, Buffy is... Buffy is dead," Willow said with great difficulty.  
"How can you say that?" he asked her. Buffy wasn't dead. Not his Buffy. Not Buffy Anne Summers. She couldn't be dead.  
  
  
  
"Buffy: How did you find me here?  
Angel: If I was blind, I would see you."  
-Anne, Season III  
  
  
  
"Angel..." Willow started the pain on her face, but then she stopped because the expressions she saw flashing through Angel would have made the coldest heart cry.  
Cordelia, standing behind Angel, couldn't see his face. She was only thinking that he shouldn't have said that to Willow. It had hurt her. Then, she saw him begin to fall, begin to sink down. She would have run forward to catch him, but it wasn't her place. She couldn't support him and the person that he needed to keep him from falling was the reason he was falling.  
Suddenly a figure darted out of the shadows and ran to Angel. Dawn had meant to stay in the corner and not say anything, but when she saw Angel collapsing she knew that he needed Buffy and Buffy would have wanted her to support him. She couldn't hold him up. She wasn't as strong as Buffy and so together they sank to the ground.  
  
  
"Buffy: We're not friends. We never were. And I can fool Giles, and I can fool my friends, but I can't fool myself. Or Spike for some reason. What I want from you I can never have. You don't need me to take care of you anymore. So I'm gonna go.  
Angel: I don't accept that.  
Buffy: You have to.  
Angel: How can... There's gotta be some way we can still see each other.  
Buffy: There is. Tell me that you don't love me.  
Angel:..............."  
-Lover's Walk, Season III  
  
  
  
He held her tightly. She could feel the pain of his arms as he grasped her, unaware of his strenghth in his hour of need. The pain felt good. Wesley was the first to realize that the loud crack they all heard was Dawn's arm. He made a move to try and disentangle Angel and Dawn, but Willow stopped him and motioned for them all to leave.  
"She doesn't feel the pain. Her heartbreak is too great. He doesn't realize what he is doing," Cordelia thought. "Oh G-d how are we ever going to get over this? How is he ever going to get over this?" Behind her Gunn looked confused and waited until the group was out in the sunlight to ask Willow who she was and who exactly was Buffy.  
  
  
  
"Angel: There's a lot I don't understand, but I do know that it's important to keep fighting. I learned that from you.  
Buffy: But we never...  
Angel: We never win.  
Buffy: Not completely.  
Angel: We never will. That's not why we fight. We do it because there are things worth fighting for."  
-Gingerbread, Season III  
  
  
  
LATER THAT DAY  
Angel lay in bed. His mind kept coming back to the truth and the fact and then reeling away from it. He finally realized what the phrase "get a grip" meant, get a grip on reality. He couldn't, couldn't grasp the truth. It was too horrible. It was too stark. It was too sad. It was too true.  
  
  
  
"Angel: Um, am I going to see you this weekend? You, uh, you-- you probably have plans.  
Buffy: Right, birthday. Um, actually, I, I do have a thing.  
Angel: Oh, a thing. A date?  
Buffy: Nice attempt at casual. Actually I do have a date. Older man, very handsome. He likes it when I call him 'Daddy.' "  
-Helpless, Season III  
  
  
  
He thought that Willow had taken Dawn to a hospital to get her arm taken care of. He hadn't meant to break it and he should have felt remorse, but he didn't because nothing could penetrate his grief. He vaguely remembered falling and holding Dawn for what seemed like minutes, but was probably hours. He remembered realizing that the sun had gone down and feeling the sensation of Wesley and Gunn prying Dawn out of his tight grasp to take her away. He thought he had murmured some resistance, but couldn't recall. Gunn and Cordelia had led him to his bedroom and laid him out on the bed. He thought that Cordelia had said something. It was probably some expression of her sorrow over his loss. It couldn't penetrate his haze.  
Now he lay in bed thinking about Buffy, about their day and what he would have done if he had known the end was so near, about the apocalypses that they weathered, about how he had left for Pylea thinking that she would be okay, that she wouldn't need him. He thought about the time under the tree and wondered if she had ever been given the chance to find her way and then he sobbed outloud. It wasn't fair.  
  
  
  
"Angel: I watched you and I saw you called. It was a bright afternoon out in front of your school. You walked down the steps... and... and I loved you.  
Buffy: Why?  
Angel: Because I could see your heart. You held it before you for everyone to see. And I worried that it would be bruised or torn. And more than anything in my life I wanted to keep it safe... to warm it with my own.  
Buffy: That's beautiful. Or, taken literally incredibly gross.  
Angel: I was just thinking that, too."  
-Helpless, Season III  
  
  
  
He thought about his leaving her. In his worst moments he had felt that he never wanted her to find someone that she loved even half as much as she loved him. In his best moments he wanted her to forget so that she wouldn't feel the same pain as him. She had finally found someone that she loved as much as Angel, Dawn. It had killed her, just like Angel had almost killed her. He realized that he should have known that would happen. He should have seen that when Buffy loved someone it was with her heart, all her soul, and all her might and love like that could kill even a slayer.  
  
  
"Angel: Be careful.  
Buffy: You know me.  
Angel: I mean it."  
-Bad Girls, Season III  
  
  
"Angel?" It was Willow. She stood hovering between feet unsure in his doorway. Her frame was silhoueted and her red hair gleamed in the darkness. Angel took a moment to ponder how different from Buffy she was and yet they had always been best friends. "I'm just gonna talk and not wait for a response cuz' it will be easier on both of us that way," Willow said. "I think," she added as an afterthought.  
Angel was still too numb to even nod. "She felt bad about it, about leaving you," Willow told him. "But it was something that she really felt she had to do. Before she... She was telling us about why and about how Dawn was a part of her. The monks had created Dawn from her. And she said that when she held Dawn she felt close to her even more than... Then she stopped, but we all knew who she was talking about. It was you. She told Giles about how hard it was for her to kill you, but she knew that it had been the right thing to do... but with Dawn... She didn't see a way out of the situation. Everything was blurred and there was no black and white," Willow stopped.  
  
  
  
"Angel: You still my girl?  
Buffy: Always."  
-Enemies, Season III  
  
  
"I'm gonna go now," she said. This time Angel could muster up enough response to nod. So Buffy had still loved him. In her last days on earth she had thought about him and even after spending two years apart she had felt close to him that time he had held her. He knew that when he began to grieve that would help him. But now he still couldn't feel anything. What was it that the textbooks called this? Oh yeah, denial. He took a moment to ponder why it had never happened to him before. He had seen people die. When he was alive his grandparents had passed away. His mother had lost her second child after him. None of it affected him like this. He knew it was partly because of the fact that he hadn't been the best person when he was alive and much of his later years were spent being a demon, but it was something more...  
  
  
  
"Buffy: Do you get the feeling we're in a rut?  
Angel: A rut?  
Buffy: You never take me anywhere new...  
Angel: What about that fire demon nest by the beach?  
Buffy: (gives him an 'are you crazy look?')"  
-Choices, Season III  
  
  
  
Then he realized. It was because he cared more about Buffy than them. It was because Buffy was a part of him and if he recognized the fact that she was gone it would leave a big gaping hole in his heart and take away his strongest source of warmth and light. It was also because he knew it wasn't fair. It wasn't her time to go and she had sacrificed herself for sister. It was truly a most noble sacrifice and paid for in the cruelest way.  
  
  
  
"Angel: Buffy... Is it really you...  
Buffy: Yes... I'm here.  
Angel: I.. I wanted to see you one... last... before I go...  
Buffy: You're not going to die..."  
-Graduation Day Part II, Season III (finale)  
  
  
  
"No good deed goes unpunished," Angel said outloud. They were the first words he had spoken since he held Dawn.  
"Funny," Buffy's sister said, as she entered his room. "I was just thinking that." She sat down on the bed next to Angel. Her frame was so small that the bed hardly moved down.  
"Are you hungry?" Angel asked.  
Dawn shook her head. He looked towards the windows. Light peeked through the cracks. "You should probably get going soon, back to Sunnydale," Angel told her.  
"Probably," Dawn said. They sat for a moment in silence. "You haven't cried yet."  
"Can't," Angel said.  
"I understand," Dawn told him. "You feel kind of numb, like it isn't real and then slowly start to realize. At first you get angry and annoyed at everyone around and then just incredibly sad and depressed and one day you just wake up and decide she would have wanted me to keep going," Dawn stopped and looked at her hands. "It takes a while," she told him.  
Angel thought about Joyce. "I think you're a little too experienced at this," he told Dawn.  
"Doesn't matter," Dawn said. "It never prepares you. The hardest thing in this world is to live in it. That's what Buffy said before she died."   
"She was right," Angel said. "There are no breathers in life."  
"I'm sorry. I know she loved you... I know you loved her."  
"Love," Angel said. "Death can't keep me from it." There was another silence. "It's not your fault," he finally said.  
"Are you just saying that or do you really mean it?" Angel looked at Dawn.  
"Dawnie," he said. "Buffy chose to die. It's not your fault. It's who she was and what she did. She-- we're champions," Angel said, recoiling slightly at the word. "We're supposed to fight things that go bump in the dark so other people don't have to. We're supposed to die. You're supposed to live. Buffy loved you. She loved you more than life. So she gave you her gift, death. Death was her gift. One day it will be my gift and I'll give it to the person I find worthy." Angel thought about giving up his humanity and the time Buffy had killed him and realized that he already knew the person who was worthy. It was the remaining piece of Buffy in the world. It was Dawn. "Buffy..." Angel said and then stopped. "I hope," he said, "it will be someone like you." Dawn bit her lip and curled it in as the tears threatened to fall.  
"Thank you," she said. They sat for a moment longer, feeling the spirit of Buffy all around them as is she was sitting in between them whole and alive.  
  
  
  
"Buffy: So I guess we've covered it, right?  
Angel: I guess we did.  
Buffy: And that's all there really is to say.  
Angel: Yeah.-- That's it."  
- (Angel Episode) I Will Remember You, Season I  
  
  
  
Actually... "It's never over." - Buffy in Graduation Day Part II, Season III  
  
  
THE END  
  
As a side note in the Season Finale when Buffy starts to talk to Dawn and give her instructions you can semi-hear the first couple of words she says. The first time I heard it I thought she said something about Angel. So I played it back over and I 'm almost positive it was about him. I'm not sure how this works because I thought that the message she says (while she is jumping) is what she told Dawn. So if anyone can help me out pls write it in a review (i guess) or email me at me52686@hotmail.com. Thanx! 


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